In Between
by Vhii1217
Summary: It intrigued Tezuka, how Fuji acted like a child and an adult but never in-between— the teenager he really was. Perfect Pair.


Disclaimer: I don't any of the characters and setting displayed in this story.

A/N: I graduated! Now I'm no longer a high school student but not yet a college student so… I have no status? Anyway, I'm happy to finish my study in high school, although my National Exam grades are not really good (my Indonesian and Biology are downright hell) –sobs-

_**In-Between**_

It got to have something to do with Kikumaru, Tezuka decided, when the thought that had been bothering him for the past few weeks resurfaced.

Kikumaru, who was popular for his childish and—as some fangirls put it—cute behavior, tended to make people around him go drastic. Oishi, for example, developed the mild motherly trait that had been present in his blood into a more extreme turn, changing him from a mere worrywart into a frantic mother hen.

Kikumaru's nature also took its effect on the redhead's own very best friend, Fuji Shusuke. Although with Fuji, everything didn't go the way it went with other people. Instead, it affected him in a more unique, Fujish way.

Double-headed sword was perhaps a suitable term to name it, albeit 'sword' might be a little too harsh. Anyway, it didn't impinge on him in one way but two, like two poles that were the consequence of breaking one magnet body.

Whenever Oishi was absent, Tezuka noticed, Fuji would open-handedly take the adult role. Although he didn't act like a mother Oishi did—he resorted to play a big brother role—he took care of his childish best friend like an adult did of a little boy. He praised the acrobatic whenever he did right and chided him gently whenever he did wrong.

When Oishi was present, however, Fuji's role turned around a hundred eighty degrees into a mate of a child. He schemed pranks only children could ever think of, he whined and pouted the adorable way only children could ever muster, he laughed and giggled the lovable way only children could ever do. Together with Kikumaru, he created trouble after trouble in order to cause the fukubuchou—and subsequently, the buchou himself—overcome by migraine.

Being a middle child also had a share to this incongruity. Tezuka clearly knew that Yumiko absolutely doted on his oldest little brother. Given this, it wasn't a misplacing on Fuji's part to indulge in the affection his sister showered him with. It was not a rare—although no less amusing—spectacle to watch Fuji behaving like a spoiled little boy in front of Yumiko. On the other hand, being an older brother to Yuuta surged the adult instinct inside him. He constantly worried over the younger Fuji sibling, taking care of him and doting on him to the point that even Yuuta himself had to put distance between the two of them.

There was nothing wrong with acting a little childish like Kikumaru, nor was it wrong to behave a little mature like he himself did (it was not 'a little', but that was beside the point). But there was something amiss, Tezuka mused, something that was not quite right. Only he could never really point a finger on the matter he thought was happening to Fuji. There was something about the way Fuji waltzed from 'childish' to 'mature' to 'childish' again that disturbed the serious boy, only slightly, when he had nothing else to mull over. Slowly, however, the matter consumed the better part of his brain, leaving it to work on the layers of questions around a certain prodigy. It heightened his awareness concerning Fuji; every slight brush, every light touch, every soft word from the lithe boy reigned over his mind.

Day by day passed and he was a first-hand witness to this little phenomenon Fuji was conducting. Fuji was a prodigy, true, a boundless multicolored butterfly who danced his way atop of expectation. Other people thought it was useless to try to unlace Fuji's intricate lattice and just accepted him as 'simply complicated'. But Tezuka was nothing if not a determined man. He would give the best he'd got to untie the enigma, even to the extent of confronting Fuji and wrecking the answer out of the tensai.

The chance came one day, when Fuji generously exhibited the intriguing dance all in a sequence of time. Tezuka firstly watched in dismay as Fuji and Kikumaru decided to experiment with Penal Tea and strawberry toothpaste just to see if they could work the taste out, testing it on a poor unsuspecting Kaidoh. The captain had barked '50 laps!' to an awed Kikumaru and an innocently smiling Fuji when the tensai's cell phone rang. He excused himself for a moment to a relatively more peaceful corner in the clubroom. For a reason he himself wasn't sure of, Tezuka followed the shorter boy from a safe distance, leaving Kaidoh and Kikumaru to Oishi's care.

"…you're coming home? Ara, that's good news… Hai, I'll tell Kaa-chan. The raspberry pie will be ready too… Maa ne, take care. Use a warmer sweater, Yuuta, it's still cold this time of the year… I'll prepare the hot bath and soup… Be careful when you're on your way. Look left and right before crossing the street… Ja."

Fuji closed his cell phone and turned around, only to be startled by Tezuka's silent presence behind him.

"Tezuka?"

"Where is the real you, Fuji? _What_ is the real you?"

Fuji was confused, Tezuka could tell, by the sudden and unexpected questions. His sapphire eyes glimmered and he cocked his pretty head a little to the side.

"Are you speaking about tennis?"

"No," Tezuka looked straight into the blue eyes. "What is the real _you_?"

The stared at each other for the longest time and Tezuka began to think that perhaps he didn't make that much of a sense. Tezuka was logical and prided himself as such. It was nonsensical; it was a problem only occurring inside his head. On the second thought, maybe he did make sense; too much of it that the real point was obscured behind shadow. He reveled in the paradox of this momentum.

'Paradox' was one of a few suiting words to describe one Fuji Shusuke. A magnet with two poles in one body, and like any other magnet, he pulled. This time, Tezuka was the one pulled into the whirlwind.

"Well?"

Fuji sighed. "What do you want me to be, Tezuka?"

"I ask what the real you is, not what people want you to be."

Tezuka was stubborn, he knew it himself. Sometimes it became a trouble, but this time it had to be his forte.

"A minute you are kidding around with Kikumaru, behaving like any child does. You are not a child anymore, Fuji."

"You don't bother Eiji with a same question."

"Because unlike you, he doesn't turn into a total different adult the very next minute. You are not even an adult yet."

"You are not the one to speak, Tezuka," Fuji chuckled lightly at the statement.

"Being mature or childish is not a mistake, Fuji," Tezuka countered. "But you are being both, or maybe none. You might be lost in yourself."

Pacific eyes shone with undecipherable glints. "So, what do you want me to behave like? In-between?"

The answer came to Tezuka just like that, clear as the day. That was the point. Fuji behaved like a child and an adult but never in between—the teenager he really was.

"In-between," the captain nodded after a speed thought. "The teenager you _are_, Fuji."

A pair of lips descended on his, only a light peck but enough to send his mind whirling, the feelings lingering longer than the actual touch. Fuji smiled his familiar smile. "And so I do, buchou. Doesn't kissing someone you like in public without a care of what others may think count as behaving like a common teenager?"

Fuji walked away with a satisfied, even slightly dreamy smile, leaving him rooted on the ground and the club members—who had been unknowingly watching them all the time—gawking in shock.

So Fuji did behave like a teenager he was in front of the person he liked; the slight brushes, the light touches, the soft-spoken words. The said person was just too busy pondering to notice.

**END**

A/N: My writer's block seems to fade a little. Help me to banish it by reviewing! I love reviewers even though I most likely cannot reply to each and everyone of them, since my internet connection kinda despises me.

By the way! This has nothing to do with this story, but I have a question. You know, emperors at the past usually had other spouses beside the empress. Do you know what term used to call these other wives of the emperor? I need this to continue one of my multichapter story called The Prince's Guardian.

Thank you for reading! Hoping you'll leave a review…^^


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